Session 11: Understanding

Vulnerability and Resilience

together
SANA KHOSA
Vulnerability and resilience together
Vulnerability and resilience
Corruption reflecting our vulnerability
 Corruption reflecting our vulnerability

 Corruption contributes to disaster impacts

 Aid results in greater corruption - Critiques of international aid mgt
 High environmental degradation, kickbacks in development projects, illegal developments and
encroachments on floodplains/high risk areas, disregard for land-use planning and building codes
 “The structural integrity of a building is no stronger than the social integrity of the
builder, and each nation has a responsibility to its citizens to ensure adequate
inspection. In particular, nations with a history of significant earthquakes and
known corruption issues should stand reminded that an unregulated construction
industry is a potential killer” (Ambraseys and Bilham, p. 155)
Resilience revisited…

 Resilience means the ability to ‘resile from’ or ‘spring back from’ a

shock. (p. 123) (absorptive)
 “ a process of linking a set of adaptive capacities to a positive
trajectory of functioning and adaptation after a disturbance” (p.
123) (adaptive)
 Engineering
Resilience
 Concept originated from physics
 Some materials are elastic, regain their
shape after stretching
 F= kX
 F = force applied
 k = coefficient of stiffness
 X= amount of stretching
 Communities and people have states
they can bounce back to and they also
have breaking pts
 People adapt and learn whereas springs
don’t.
Ecological Resilience

 Notion of multiple stable states

 Multiple factors/instabilities that can flip the system from one state to another
 “…resilience is measured by the magnitude of disturbance that can be absorbed
before the system redefines its structure by changing the variables and processes
that control behavior” (p. 126)
 Buffering disturbances to reduce impacts
 Learning to live with change/uncertainty
 Learning and adaptation
Ecological resilience

 Ecosystems are used to adaptation and learning

 Species adapt to local conditions
 Adaptability.
 Preparing for a big disaster, you need to experience smaller disasters (learning)
 Provided you don’t reach a fragile state/point.
 So state or the humanitarian community needs to provide the support the be
resilient so fragile state is not reached essentially.
 Psychological Resilience

 Studies of concentration camp

survivors in WWII
 Some continued to function while
others reached a breaking point.
 Genetics, individual’s interaction
with family (safe place), school,
friends.
 Relationships and attachment to
people and places provide
resilience to reconstruct and
recover.
Psychological Resilience

 Notion of social capital (adaptive capacity that results from social relationships)
 Human capital (internal individual adaptive capacity –competence, self-control, capabilities)
 Psychological resilience is very important for individual and community recovery as well.
 Techniques to use: active listening, empathy, relaxation, play therapy, storytelling, spirituality.
 Men – alcoholism/substance abuse Women – depression
 Fear of being dependent on aid, media coverage.
 Maintain their dignity and independence
Resilience and Recovery

 How do we restore their dignity and independence?

 Civic ecological processes can be healing for communities – play
an active role in debris cleanup, planting trees, gardening
 ‘even one small little garden can create a sense of peace and hope’
 Compensation along with ‘social support’.
Community Resilience

 Community resilience – “a set of capacities that can be fostered

through interventions and policies, which in turn help build and
enhance a community’s ability to respond and recover from
disasters” (p. 130).
 Resilience is culturally derived/relative
 Shared local norms/social roles, trust, collective participation,
accessibility of resources.
 Rigid societies – fundamentalist/orthodox in nature.
 Disaster Resilient Community (UN DRR)

 Level 1. Little awareness of the issue(s) or motivation to address them. Actions limited to crisis
response.
 Level 2. Awareness of the issue(s) and willingness to address them. Capacity to act (knowledge and
skills, human, material. and other resources) remains limited. Interventions tend to be one-off,
piecemeal, and short term.
 Level 3. Development and implementation of solutions. Capacity to act is improved and substantial.
Interventions are more numerous and long term.
 Level 4. Coherence and integration. Interventions are extensive, covering all main aspects of the
problem, and they are linked within a coherent long-term strategy.
 Level 5. A “culture of safety” exists among all stakeholders, where DRR is embedded in all relevant
policy, planning, practice, attitudes and behavior.
 Religion and Spirituality’s role in Resilience

 Too often, development programs are done with a secular worldview that can
privatize or problematize religion, thereby overlooking the religious sources of
resilience.
Margarita A. Mooney

 Religion and spirituality are sources that contribute to resilience

 Studies have shown a positive impact on recovery and coping
 Coping mechanisms

 Regular communication with a Higher Power

 Miracles of faith and healing
 Daily reading of the bible
 Helping others

 Subthemes of divine will

 Crisis as a means of absolving sin
 “Allah ne kissi badi aafat se bacha leya”/ “gunah jarh rehay hain”
 But can some religious interpretations be
maladaptive
 Proselytizing – trying to change one’s religious views
 “God’s punishment for lack of righteousness and grave sin”
 Already traumatic and fragile state – will lead to shattering self-esteem
 Feelings of helplessness
 Element of discord
 Constant dissent about our way and their way
 Need to encourage, inspire and support instead. Respect people as they are. Do not
“convert, blame and exploit vulnerable people”.
Spiritual care and spirituality

 Spirituality is a personal quest for the transcendent, how one discerns life’s meaning in
relation to God and other human beings. Healthy spirituality fosters healthy relationships
and affirms all of life’s experiences as part of the journey.
Rabbi Eric Lankin
 Spiritual people are noted to have the following characteristics:
 • A sense of awe and wonder
 • A sense of community
 • A sense of personal mission
 • Enthusiasm for continuous discovery and creativity
 • A sense of well-being and joy (Massey, 2006)
Case Study on Grassy Narrows

 Give it a good read

 Root causes of their vulnerability?
 Symptoms/Results?
 How to make them resilient ?
Grassy Narrows

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E06pWtCHIg